Sometimes you find something online that you really really like. You wonder if you should buy it or not. So you ask the seller the question that’s haunting you, but receive no reply. What do you guys do?
I decided to create something that would give me a similar vibe, but from scratch. This was my inspiration picture:
I really liked this item. The leaves, the thickness of the belt, the vintage-y look, but there was one potential snag. How would it close? The reason this is important for me, is that the last time I bought a watch online, the band was both too long and almost too short at the same time. It was one of those studded wrap watches that wind around your wrist three times. Well, with three times I had so much band left over that it was still studded, so no holes yet. So I decided to have holes added at the end and then I could wear it, but wrapped four times. Depending on the day, this can be just that little bit too tight. So if the watch didn’t have the possibility of having extra holes made to fit my chicken wrists, it wouldn’t work for me.
In the end I purchased six separate watch faces from another DaWanda shop. I bought some leather, a clasp and rivets from a local haberdashery shop. I wanted to be able to change the watch faces depending on my fancy of that day, this would mean that the face wouldn’t be attached completely.
I ended up cutting a 14 cm by 2.5 cm strip of leather and rounding of the edges. Second bit was a ~20 cm by 0.8 cm strip of leather.
I made a hole in the thin strip to thread the clasp through, the leather was then doubled at one end. I made a hole in the double end and another in the thicker strip and riveted them together. I then added supports using a rivet on either side under which the thin strip could pass to keep the watch face in place. I added the watch face for that day and attached a small oak leave pendant using a jump ring. This is the result:
On the left, you can just about see the supports for the thin strip to pass under. Because of the design of this specific watch face, these supports are adequate to keep the face in place. For the next iteration of this design I will place the supports closer to the actual watch face. You can just about see the rivet underneath the end on the right picture. To get an even better idea, you can see it laid out below, with the alternative watch faces. The top right one doesn’t fit in this design, so I’ll have to think of another method for that one.
I think I found a new hobby. I like cutting out leather with sharp tools and using my hammer to whack things. Now I just await the new smaller rivets that are coming my way and create a similar design to this. Maybe I’ll use the wrong side of the leather for some added contrast or such. I might also round of the support edges to make it a little cuter. Use a different colour leather. Add another pendant.. So many possibilities!